Tree of Life

I guess you could say that I am in the initial obsessive stage of learning a new craft. I have been scouring the Internet and print media for information and examples of wire wrapped and beaded art forms. I feel like, and look like, I'm just wasting my time just looking and reading. But I'm absorbing a lot of information, reading about materials and tools, looking at step-by-step instructions, watching videos, deciding what I like and don't like, looking at complex designs and trying to figure out how they did that.

I've seen a lot of examples of the Tree of Life pendent, everything from a six inch sun-catcher to a tiny one inch earring. The first time I saw one I thought I would like to make it but had no clue how to do it. But as usual, all the generous people who share their knowledge on the Internet came to the rescue. I found multiple step-by-step instructions and a few demonstration videos on techniques for making this pendent. The main thing I noticed was that there were two basic ways to approach this project. Once you make your outside ring you either start adding wires at the root and work up to completing the branches or you start at the branches and leaves and work your way down and finish with the roots. I opted for the second method. It seemed to be the easier approach.

And this is my completed first Tree of Life pendent. It's nothing fancy, just copper wire and inexpensive beads. I learned from the experience and plan to do some things differently next time. This design has many possibilities with different choices for wire and beads, or in some cases no beads. The next time I post I will try to include links to some of the sources I came across, but they are not hard to find with a simple search.

Wire and Beads

Each new year seems to bring a new craft to try. Maybe because January and February are cold unmotivated boring months. I can't seem to pick up where I left off with last years crafts so I sort through my craft supplies and look at different ideas and the next thing I know I'm off in another direction trying something new. This year I was inspired by some hand made glass beads I bought 20 years ago when touring a glass factory. I never had any specific plans for them, I just liked them. But then I saw a demo on wire wrapping beads and saw a solution for my little bead collection. I didn't want to leave them in a little bag in a drawer for another 20 years so I got some wire and pliers, watched a few videos on YouTube and made a chain for my beads to hang on the wall. After I finished the bead chain I tried a couple other types of wire and bead projects and found it to be a fun distraction. I may make a few more wire and bead objects but I won't be making jewelry. But I can see the possibility of using wire and beads in collage or other artwork.

 

January Slump

I often don't do much crafting in January. It's cold outside, I'm tired from Christmas, I am busy planning and organizing for the new year, but generally I am not very motivated or inspired to create anything. But everything in my craft space is waiting for me to get back to it when the mood finally strikes.

Before Christmas I'd started experimenting with fabric collages on canvas panels. The clear acrylic medium I use for the collage lends a semi-transparent look to some of the fabrics. I have a number of ideas I want to try with this method. Here is an example of a fabric and acrylic collage:

More Heart Ornaments

The holidays are a busy time of year and everything gets reorganized for a few weeks so most of my hobbies take a back seat for awhile. But I can still escape to my craft room and sit and sew for a couple minutes. I'm still working on the patchwork heart shape ornament idea and trying to perfect my construction process. Issues like having the curves curvy enough, and the point pointy enough, and just the right amount of stuffing to be rounded enough and completely hiding the stitched up turning opening and deciding if I should put it on the side or in the middle of the back. All those little details make a difference between good enough and really nice, IMHO.

Christmas Ornaments

No matter how busy I am at Christmas, the season inspires me to work on Christmas crafts of some type. Recently I have seen a few examples of embroidered fabric ornaments and decided to work on a few of my own design for Christmas. They aren't finished yet and won't be ready for this year but it gives me some little craft to work on while watching Christmas movies. And I may actually get one or two done before Christmas.

Christmas Card Art

It's that time of year again when I get a little inspired to do some seasonal arts and crafts. Some years are more inspiring than others and I may end up making many homemade decorations and gifts. This year I simply focused on creating art I could possible use for the front of a Christmas card. Because this has been a year of many paint and collage experiments I decided to create a Christmas themed collage and tried variations with fabric and paper.

 

After making and scanning these pieces I applied some Photoshop enhancements and additions and choose one of the map paper tree collage pictures to print as Christmas cards.

 

I had a few folded cards printed at Shutterfly and some flat cards printed at the cardstore. Now all I have to do is send them, ... and decorate the house, go Christmas shopping, bake cookies, decorate a tree, ... etc.

 

Happy Holidays!

Fabric Books and Flowers

I decided I wanted to make a fabric flower for the front of an altered book I am working on and I ended up making more than a dozen, just for practice. I plan to make more flowers because for one, I have a lot of fabric and for another, the more flowers I make the more ideas I get for using them. One of the first fabric flowers I made was a little red one that ended up on the cover of this little journal I completed last week.

 

The remaining fabric flowers and the additional ones I am destined to make look like this:

 

Today I just finished adding the innards to a funny looking little fabric book I embellished with random embroidery and homemade polymer clay buttons, but no fabric flowers!

Front

Back

Innards

I still have a couple more fabric books to finish and now I am starting on some Christmas themed projects. Expect to see something for Christmas next time. 

Later.